The official Microsoft branding typeface, Segoe, is a beautiful and elegant font. It’s used in almost every Microsoft branding campaign ranging from posters to logos, most notably Windows Vista. And for that reason, it’s not a font you can exactly download from any fonts website. However, if you do happen to have it through one way or another, you will cherish it. It works great as a Helvetica substitute, and even looks extremely sharp even in small font sizes due to the ClearType enhancements. And there’s no better if you need to create a fake Microsoft logo.

To note, this is not just Segoe UI which comes with Vista or Office 2007. Segoe UI is just one of the many subsets in the Segoe family which make up the collection. This is that collection.

Out of pure luck, Microsoft has actually let such a prized possession slip out of its internal archives and onto the public internet. A few weeks ago, Microsoft silently uploaded an ambiguous downloadable titled “Print Ad for Microsoft Dynamics Business Management Solutions Brief Description“. It would have sounded pretty innocent to the normal Microsoft.com user, but it was highly contagious for a sleuth like myself. And I was right, there it was in its full-fidelity and form, all 14 font files that make up the Segoe family.

But that’s not all. Apart from all possible combinations of condensed, semibold and light type variations, there are also PostScript (Type-1) versions and believe it or not, Mac versions. And to top it off, it also comes with the much adored license agreement spelled “licnese.txt”. In which it states,

Microsoft grants you a personal, nonexclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to install and use the Software solely for the purpose of creating materials requested by Microsoft and in accordance with the specification(s) provide to you by Microsoft. By way of example only, such materials may include printed material (such as advertising, packaging, promotional material, and manuals), form material (such as templates and style sheets), online graphic material (such as bitmapped text, bitmapped logos and Macromedia Flash animations), and broadcast material (such as television advertising).

You may install and use the Software on an unlimited number of computers as long as all such computers are either owned or controlled by you.

NO RENTAL/TRANSFER. You may not rent, lease, lend, or otherwise transfer the Software.

A rather straight-forward and lenient EULA by any legal standards. I’ll leave you to interpret what “creating materials requested by Microsoft” means. But since I cannot transfer you the “software” in a direct manner, you will have to download the full 24MB pile of ‘stuff’ that the Segoe fonts are wedged between.

Once you have extracted the ZIP, you can find the TrueType fonts in the “BDM_Q107_LeadGen_AD\High Resolution\Fonts\Windows_Fonts\Segoe_PC\Segoe_TT_PC” directory. Copy and install the fonts and you’re all set.

Don’t ask me how I found this, just grab it quickly. You never know when the A-Team (Microsoft Legal Council) will blow it out of existence.

to all you sad people that so desperately want that Segoe font simply go out and buy Frutiger from Linotype. You’ll find Segoe looks almost identical to Frutiger sans a few minor details.

Not sure why they are similar. Perhaps Microsoft didn’t want to pay the license fee for Frutiger and simply copied it. You bee the judge.

FYI, Segoe (not Segoe UI which ships with Vista) is owned by Microsoft (or Linotype if you ask Linotype’s lawyers) and therefore can not be used or distributed without prior written permission by Microsoft. Since this is their corporate font I doubt they will really allow for this to be used in any other way than producing collateral for Microsoft.

@tom: Microsoft didn’t created the Segoe. They purchased the font from Monotype and improved it for the ClearType technology. And yes it is very similar to the Frutiger Next but that is also the case with Adobe’s Myriad. Even Adobe couldn’t improve a perfect font like the Frutiger 😉

Mike, you are mistaken, these are the ClearType Collection fonts that ship with Vista and Office, these are also included in the Office Compatibility Pack that gets installed when you try to view Office 2007 documents.

Hi people! i know segoe is a lovely font, so i searched the the web for ages and a found a good link for you! be quick, i cannot guarantee this link will last for long. if anyone wants to know where you can get the Segoe Media Center font, and the Segoe Script and the Segoe Print font, click on the second link.

Hi there, after extensive research, this font is just Gill Sans under another name, rather like arial is just helvetica under another name, frutiger is close as well, but not as close a gill sans… cheers =8¬)

No need to apologise Drew, but in my view they are not, and I am not going to argue with you further, I guess it depends which cut of Gill you are using, I have managed to replicate a rubbish fireworks PNG supplied to me using this official microsoft ripoff of gill sans absolutely perfectly… but I do have 25 years experience as a typographer behind me, and a professional font collection to go with it. I usually start with the “G” and work my way out from there. I must admit I have not looked too hard at the ‘t’ I am sure there will be some small differences, I was stuck working in Caps as that is the way the PNG was supplied. I confess that I don’t have a lowercase set to compare Gill to.

I would be facinated to actually get my hands on the this offending microsoft rip off segeo media font family to really take a look, but to be honest if it is microsoft… they can keep it.

Frutiger however is quite different, however if you were wanting to have a joke with someone which is not as visually literate as you clearly are, you’d probably get away with it.

I am sorry, but they are completely different. Look at the font Gill Sans’s t’s. they are completely different to the charectar t on segoe. those fonts are completely different.

_____________

one t maketh not a font, perhaps you are confusing the laymans view of a font and the pedantic, “ooh look at the cut on that” perspective, how many versions of helvetica are there? Next you’ll be telling me that Arial and Helevetica are totally different.

Try this links (not mine, make some mirrors before they die if you can).
Just found it through google, not checked if they are good.
These are the full Segoe package apparently, not the Segoe UI you can find anywhere…
There is no mac version I could find…

Hey Pablo thank you a lot the first link worked (only tested first).
These fonts installed on my mac (still they would give a warning when you would install it but let it you will be fine ;))
Also Microsoft said that Segoe UI was made both for Mac and Windows so mac users are fine with Pablo links (i got this information from a microsoft link don’t ask it to me).
And of course i am a good boy so i mirrored for all you people the Pablo upload if his link dies:

go to the start menu, search ‘ehome’ and open the folder, this folder is for windows media center and it contains the fonts used in media center: segoe, segoe semi-bold, segoe light. (this only works with editions of vista that have media center)

What the hell???
I downloaded the fonts from the first in the post by Filho and my SegoeUI fonts all became blank.
Sure, I did get the print and script fonts but I lost the ui font and it srewed my office 2007, which uses segoe ui as a default font.
One of the worst downloads in my life…seroiusly!

I installed Windows Seven and Office 2007, I got all the fonts of Windows Seven and Office 2007, including Segoe and Calibri, by luck, I have already recorded all the 1,900 fonts from Windows Seven and Office 2007 in my DVD 😀 But I also recorded other 5,000 fonts in my same DVD 😀

At all:
if you have windows, just go to system and search “fonts”
then you see all the fonts on your computer and you just can copy them.(no download, nothing)
on win.7 there are all segoe fonts 4free.
enjoy your font

Having gone through the entire thread of messages, there was obviously some serious confusion over the Segoe fonts. I originally went looking for “Segoe Print”, which is a nice script style font, but people here starting comparing it to Frutiger, which is more like Gill Sans. I then discovered there are two different types of Segoe and that the regular Segoe font family *does* look alot like Frutiger.

I Habib, from Pakistan, I need the Segoe Normal-Bold-Italic, in three form, please send me this font, I need this need so much because I need this font in Doctor Letter Pad and this Doctor is very important for us if u have this font please send me as zipp file. I will be very thankful to you.
Habib

It’s rather insane. Their .ai template file requires Segoe, but then they don’t share it. So as a designer on Mac you are pretty much not able to create proper mockups to help your Windows dev out. Same for the Segoe Symbol font. It is great they are using an icon font, and I’d love to do things proper – font icons, and the right ones at that, but it is hard achieve that without having the actual font.

(But then again, they do have .ppt mockup templates on default. #slightsigh)

This is all very old now, but that license is not a straightforward lenient EULA. The words “use the Software solely for the purpose of creating materials requested by Microsoft and in accordance with the specification(s) provide to you by Microsoft” are actually quite clear in their meaning, and they say that you can only use this for doing stuff that Microsoft commissioned you to do.

Not that anyone sharing these fonts on the internet cares whether they have a license to do it or not.

But it’s worth being clear: contrary to the text in this article, that particular license does _not_ give you permission to use the fonts for whatever you like,